We are leaving the outlet mall here in Waterloo NY, which is kind of in the middle of no where! After a while of travelling through farm country we arrived at this massive monument to discount shopping.

We had some options in the food court for lunch, including a Subway, Arby’s, Burger King, and a pizza/pasta place who’s name escapes me at the moment.

Next we headed through the Outlet stores and had our last bit of shopping time, and we are now back on the road. Next stop: the border between this country we are currently in and the greatest country in the world!

What a perfect end to a perfect day. From the top of the Rockefeller Center, we could see incredible views of the Manhattan skyline in all of its stunning glory.

We are now headed home at lightening speed. Oh wait, sarcasm is difficult to detect over written communication. I really mean we are moving at a crawl. Actually slightly slower than a crawl. A crawling baby crawling for the first time would pass us. Gotta love that New York traffic, especially when trying to head out of the city!

I’ll try to compile a video tonight, but it may not make it up on the blog until very late tonight or in the morning.

Will definitely post once we’ve arrived back at the hotel…which at this rate should only take another fifteen or twenty years!

I’ve been having some technical difficulties posting this afternoon. I seem to now be able to post text, but I’ll be unable to post pictures or video for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, here’s a quick recap of the day:

1. After the Natural History Museum, we had lunch at Times Square at Sbarao, a lot of pizza and pasta type options.

2. We visited some stores on Times Square. First we went to the m&ms store, a multilevel locale dedicated to some sort of small sized choclate pieces that are very famous. The students went a little crazy – they were so excited… It’s almost like they were kids in a candy store! Next we split into two groups, where one (the girls) went Aeropostale, which is a clothing store, and the other group (mostly boys) opted to instead visit Toys R Us… Which was slightly different from the department store of the same name back home. This NY one was larger than a department store with enough levels to fully accommodate an indoor ferris wheel! Some students took rides and one said:

“It was totally worth the 5 dollars to ride a ferris wheel INSIDE a Toys R Us IN New York City WITH all my friends!”

3. We next ventured up to the Museum of Modern Art, where the students were well prepared to experience and embrace the “weird.” Sure, there was a row of bricks on the floor that we couldn’t distinguish between a work of art or a row of bricks. Then there was this canvas painted entirely white, which was the original colour of the canvas anyway. However, there was some absolutely wonderful works of art that the students surely appreciated including some lesser known artists such as Picasso, Van Gough (yes, we saw Starry Night in all of its glory), and Jackson Polak. Those parts were incredible.

4. Dinner was greasy New York style pizza. You don’t come to NY and not have authentic NY pizza at least once.

5. The river cruise of the city at sunset: Amazing panoramic views of Manhattan, very well narrated with interesting information, from the historic (like seeing the pier where the Titanic was supposed to dock had it not met its tragic fate) to the current (where Derek Jeter of the Yankees sold his apartment in the Trump Tower for 16 million). All the sites where seen on this gorgeous cloudless evening from the Hudson and East Rivers. It’s so beautiful as darkness envelops the day and the lights of the city turn on.

It’s at night where New York wakes up.

The cruise is coming to an end and we will be heading to the top of the Rockefeller Center to catch some glorious views of the city at night.

From the beginning of the Universe to evolution of dinosaurs to mammals and finally to us humans, the American Museum of Natural History is a whirlwind tour through the eras of the past. It is one of the world’s largest museum, with more than 32 million specimens!

We didn’t get a chance to see all 32 million specimens, so we’ll have to come back some time and finish it off!

The Museum’s mission statement:

To discover, interpret, and disseminate— through scientific research and education — knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe.

Here’s a few of those 32 million:

We are now headed back to Times Square for an afternoon of exploration, shopping, and we’ll there’s a good chance we’ll find some lunch down there (given the hundreds of food options).